This invention relates to cameras and more particularly to a camera wherein two images are combined on a focusing screen, photographed and captured on film or other photographic medium with no clear boundaries between the two images.
Drivers licenses and similar printed identification cards may comprise a data card having certain information thereon together with a portrait photograph of the licensee or other subject. Such cards originally had the photograph attached to the data card, but now cards of this nature are generally formed by either one of two photographic processes. One of these processes comprises photographing the data card onto a first negative and photographing the subject card onto a second negative, and thereafter overlaying the negatives and printing the combination. Thus, the merging of the data and portrait images occurs not in the camera, but during the printing process and the images are merged onto the print. Therefore, errors may occur at the printing facility, e.g., matching the correct data to the subject. The other process utilizes a camera wherein both the data card and subject are photographed at spaced intervals. One problem with identification cards made by this process is that a clear boundary or area of demarcation exists between the data and the portrait, and thus the cards can be tampered with by carefully cutting out the portrait portion and replacing it with another. Although certain measures are taken to make the card more tamper-proof or more secure, such as having a superimposed seal or words on a plastic protector laminated over the card or within which the card is inserted which may overlap portions of both the data and portrait, a skilled counterfeiter or the like may still readily penetrate the security of the card. For this reason a substantial number of false identification cards presently exist resulting in a substantial number of fraudulent transactions where identification is required.
If no clear boundary existed between the data image and the subject or portrait image, the degree of difficulty required to tamper with such identification cards would be substantially greater, and thus a truer identification card would result. Additional security for such cards would result if another image were also superimposed onto the card, especially one that could identify the camera used to make the card.